'Duck Dynasty' hits season low in season five's penultimate episode

Ratings for A&E's Duck Dynasty haven't been great all season, but Wednesday night's episode brought about a new low ahead of next week's finale.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the show's ratings dipped to the lowest they have been since November 2012. The ratings were so weak, the show lost in the 18-49 demographic to The Housewives of Atlanta.

The latest episode averaged 4.7 million viewers and only a 1.9 in the advertiser-important demo, which put it just below the Bravo show, which averaged a 2.0 rating.

SMGx senior vp and director of strategic intelligence Sam Armando said, "What you're seeing is similar to what NBC is doing with The Voice: 'We have it. Let's use it while we can, and get what we can out of it.'"

The ratings for the whole season have been fairly weak, but the show still routinely topped cable programs in the demo on Wednesday nights. At the end of January, the show averaged 6.65 million viewers and a 2.9 in the demo for its second episode.

Duck Dynasty initially seemed to shake off the bad publicity surrounding anti-gay comments made by the show's patriarch when it debuted to a 3.3 in the demo and 8.5 million.

The question is whether the two are related, or if viewers are just simply bored of the show.